How Did Things Go at the Dentist?

Since I am 100% self pay for dental needs I try to avoid going unless I need to. Here's what precipitated this whole crisis. For starters, despite having spent an inordinate number of hours of my life in dental chairs, I have had exactly one dentist that I liked. That was Dr. Rose in Ludington. I know that many of you local people also remember him. He did careful, gentle, and excellent work on my crappy teeth. He used to shake his head and say, "You were last in line when they handed out teeth."

And then, I did not help the situation one bit. In 5th grade, and I had just gotten my permanent front teeth, I managed to break them both off, snaggletooth style, on the gym floor. That was the beginning of a long horror story. Note: just scroll down if you don't want to read this whole long history.

This was dentistry in the 1950s. The teeth were not dead, but the nerves were exposed. Think pain. My mother was out of town for the first time in my life, and my dad was not willing to make choices until she got home, so I had to just endure that. Then, the dentist burned out the live nerves. (That was fun...) Then they ground down the stubs and put on caps.

Those were never satisfactory. I lost one or two every year. Of course, every time I was without a tooth or teeth I was teased at school. I swallowed one! Sometimes, when one came off I could retrieve it so the same cap could be glued back on. Usually not.

Then in junior high, it was determined I needed braces. For starters, my mouth was too small for the normal number of teeth. So they pulled four- one in each quadrant- so there would be room. I had an extreme overbite. So I had braces for three years.

In high school, the dentist suggested they do something "new." They would grind down the remaining stubs of my front teeth and screw a post into the old roots. Then a plastic tooth could be screwed onto the post. This would keep them in my mouth. So that was done.

Next I'm headed off to college. Yeah! With teeth that stay in my head. Yeah! Well, when I was a sophomore, I started having major mouth pain. Turns out there was in infection from that original injury that had been hiding for 9 years. It had spread to most of my upper jaw. So... 8 more teeth were pulled and put on a partial plate. That's how long I've had false teeth, since 1966.

Now, we'll back up to third grade. I swear my class was part of a Crest Test. We all got toothbrushes and toothpaste at school, and we had to line up and brush after lunch every day. And I brushed at home. However, my teeth were just riddled with decay. You'd think I never met a toothbrush. I think I was on the team that didn't get Crest.

Along around 1980, that first partial plate broke, and Dr. Rose made me my second plate. That one fit the best!

Then, my head decided to grow two wisdom teeth. No room for those babies. At least I only had them on one side of my head. One came out easily. I got sent to an oral surgeon for the other one. It was a mess, and they had to cut it out. I got a dry socket, ouch, ouch, ouch.

My second partial plate broke right after Dr. Rose sold his practice. So, yet another dentist made my third plate. But remember the bad teeth? They had to do quite a bit of work and put two gold crowns on back teeth on top to make things stable enough to hold the plate. I've never been very happy with the way this plate fits, but, o well...

Now we get to what happened this week. One of the fixes Dr. Rose did long ago on several of my molars was to more or less rebuild the tooth when there was really nothing left that could be fixed with a standard filling. He put a tight metal band around the tooth and packed it with something that created a "new" tooth. It was presented as fact that these would not last the rest of my life, but they would work for a while. Well, I don't know exactly when these were done, but I think they've lasted 25-30 years. One of these came apart this week. It left parts of the tooth looking like a series of arches at Pictured Rocks.

I was hoping a crown would fix it. Nope. The decay was too far down below the bone line. So that tooth had to come out and the one next to it will have to have a crown before it gets as bad as this one was.

So yesterday, I was off to Muskegon for the extraction. Now things get amazing. As mentioned, I've avoided dentists in recent years. First new technology surprise. They had me step up to a pedestal in the floor and bite down on a piece of plastic. That is just to keep you from moving. Then a couple of curved bars slowly whirl around your head. The result is a 3-D Xray!

There are spots on the screen they can "grab" with a finger and rotate the image, so they can really see what's happening. Result- yes, the tooth was infected. And almost more problematic, the bone had degenerated. They said this isn't really unusual, but it had to be dealt with.

Next surprise- they help the bone regenerate. They took some of my blood (more on that in a minute), and mix growth factors from that with some kind of matrix. Then when the tooth is out they pack that in the hole, layer it with collegen and sew up the top. This helps your jaw grow new bone.

Now for the blood draw. These are nearly always horrible. I have small veins that apparently roll. It often takes 3-5 attempts to get blood from me. So the assistant says, "Do you have a good vein for me?" I said, "Nope." She says, all perky, "Perfect!"

I chose an arm and she ties on the tourniquet. She asked if I was ready. Well, yeah... what else am I going to say except "yes." I am here to tell you that I never even felt the needle go in and she got it on the first try. I'm praising her abilities, and she's trying not to smirk. But she's good, and she knows it. NO bruise today and you can't even see the prick.

Now for the part of the 3-D X-ray that I find fascinating. The computer prepares a rendering of the patient's mouth area that is nothing short of amazing. Look at this!

I have to say that I think this oral surgeon was good. The tooth broke (as my dentist suspected it would) into three parts and he had to work to get them out. I chose local anaesthetic, so I knew what was going on. The assistant held my jaw to help him get leverage, and she was strong and firm but not rough.

One of the best things, and maybe this is standard now, but it was new to me. Instead of constantly telling you to open wider (which is very hard for me because my mouth is so small) they have a rounded triangle of hard rubber which they fit into the corner of your mouth and you can bite down on. Since the natural desire is to want to close and clamp your mouth, this is great. You bite down, but your mouth is still open wide.

I forgot to look at the clock when I was finished, but I think this all took a fair amount of time. I only stopped at the pharmacy on the way home for antibiotics and a special mouth rinse, but didn't get home until 4:30. It's an hour drive from where the extraction was done.

That's when I discovered my computer would not boot up. Too late to get to my computer place before they closed until Monday. I knew things were going bad, and had stopped to talk with them last week.

Anyway... there has been only a minor amount of pain with this extraction. I haven't even taken any pain meds. That's another bit of evidence that this guy was good.

Today, I've been working on the computer. Got it to boot up, and I'm running some tests and repairs I know how to do, but I'm pretty sure I'll be getting a new one next week.

I've read a bit, took a walk, watched a movie, and tried to take it easy. I'm blogging on the old computer which could die any unexpected hot second, but it seems to have survived long enough for yet another blog post.

See How's Your Self Image